Writing Exercise Helps Women Narrow Gender Gap in Science

by Wynne Parry | November 29, 2010 06:04am ET

Women still lag behind men in fields of science, technology,
engineering and math — and part of the problem may be psychological. New
research shows college-aged women who affirmed their identities through a
writing exercise performed much better than others on physics exams, narrowing
the gender gap.

The stereotype that men are better than women at math and
science could put pressure on women who may worry the stereotype applies to
them, according to the researchers. That psychological threat could lead to
poorer outcomes for these women.

The brief writing exercise likely buffered against the
threat, the researchers found.

During the 15-minute writing exercise, called a values
affirmation intervention, some students wrote about their most important
personal values, like friends and family. This exercise, performed twice over
the months-long course, appeared to boost female, but not male, students'
performances on their in-class multiple-choice exams and on a national,
standardized test of conceptual mastery of physics, the researchers wrote in
the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Science.

Historically, men have substantially outperformed women on
exams in this course as well as on the standardized test.

"The introductory course we investigated in this study
is intended for students planning to be science majors," said study
researcher Akira Miyake from the University of Colorado at Boulder. "So,
the women in that course probably did well in high school science courses, are
interested in science and are highly motivated to do well. The fact that we
found a large reduction in the gender gap
for affirmed women tells you that some
psychological processes are affecting women's performance on exams and how
powerful those influences are."

From 399 male and female students, the researchers asked a
randomly selected group to write about personally important values selected
from a list (including "relationships with friends and family," "learning"
and "gaining knowledge") during the first and fourth weeks of class.
Other students were placed into a control group and asked to write about their
least important values and to explain why they might be important to other
people.

At the end of the 15-week course, the gap between male and
female academic performance had narrowed for the women who had taken part in
the values affirmation exercise. At the end of the course, more women in the
control group, about 56 percent, had earned a C, with only 23 percent earning a
B. But among the women who performed the affirmation exercise, the Bs increased
to 37 percent and the Cs decreased to 41 percent. Meanwhile, the affirmation
exercise appeared to make no difference for male students' grades.

A survey also given to the female students indicated that
the resulting academic improvement was most pronounced in women who believed
men did better at physics. In the control group, the more strongly women
believed this
stereotype, the lower their scores. This negative correlation wasn't found
among those who performed the affirmation exercise.

"These results tell us that writing self-affirming
essays improved the affirmed women's exam performances by alleviating their
anxiety related to being seen in light of negative stereotypes about women
in science," Miyake said.

He cautioned, however, that the affirmation exercise is not
a magical silver bullet, because many factors contribute to the gender gap in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Wynne Parry

Wynne was a reporter at The Stamford Advocate. She has interned at Discover magazine and has freelanced for The New York Times and Scientific American's web site. She has a masters in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Utah.